J&J has asked JPMorgan Chase & Co. to run the sale and is preparing to send detailed financial information to potential buyers, including some of the world's largest private-equity firms along with health care companies, the sources told Reuters. The companies declined to comment on the report.

In January, the Rochester Business Journal reported Johnson & Johnson was considering a sale of Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. J&J chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky revealed during a fourth-quarter earnings call that J&J, based in Raritan, N.J., was considering strategic options that could include a divestiture of Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. A spinoff of the $2.1 billion unit might also be considered, he said.

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics ranked 23nd on the Rochester Business Journal's most recent list of private-sector employers with a local workforce of 1,130 people.